Fix and Flip in Everett

Yes, and it is the line most out-of-state flip budgets miss. The Washington Department of Revenue treats a house flipper as a "speculative builder," meaning you are "the consumer of all material incorporated into the real estate" and cannot use a reseller permit to buy anything for the job. Worse, every contractor you hire is treated as a prime contractor and must charge retail sales tax on the full contract price, labor included, with no deduction for costs. Everett's combined rate is 9.90% for Q3 2026, so a $100,000 rehab contract carries about $9,900 of sales tax on top of the materials and labor themselves. The same scope runs $10,700 in Lynnwood or Edmonds and $9,300 in unincorporated Snohomish County. Model this line before you set your rehab budget on the fix and flip calculator, not after the contractor bids come in.

Cleaner than the rehab, but not free. The sale of your finished house is not subject to retail sales tax or B and O tax; that cost sits on the construction side, not the exit. What you do pay at closing is Washington's real estate excise tax, graduated at the state level plus Everett's full 0.50% local add-on. On a $650,000 sale that works out to about $10,630, roughly 1.635% of price. While you hold the property, Everett's 2026 typical levy rate is $8.5886 per $1,000 of assessed value, so a $650,000 assessed basis carries about $5,583 a year in property tax, and Washington gives an investment property no homestead exemption and no assessment-increase cap to soften it. Build both numbers into your carry, not just the interest.

Spring, and buy in winter if you can. Snohomish County active listings ran 965 in January 2026 and 2,315 in July 2026, while median days on market ran 72 in January and dropped to 31 in March. By July, 48.3% of active listings had already taken a price cut, and inventory was up 31.6% year over year while the median list price was down 1.8%. That is a market with a hard spring selling window on either side of a slower winter, so a rehab timed to list in March or April is working with the market instead of against a rising price-cut share. Our 6-month interest-only term is built to fit inside that window if you close on the purchase in the winter months.

Usually the fees, not the review clock. The City of Everett does not publish a target review time for permits, so do not budget on a specific number of days; call Permit Services at 425-257-8810 to scope your timeline before you close. What is published and checkable is the fee schedule itself: Everett's building permit construction fee runs on a valuation-based table, for example $2,400 plus $8.75 per $1,000 of valuation between $100,000 and $500,000, with building plan review added at 75% of that fee and planning review at 10%. The fee is set by the valuation of the work, so a $300,000 valuation carries about $4,150 in construction fee before plan review, on top of the sales tax in the question above. Scope-changing work, like adding a unit or an ADU, pulls in a separate layer of impact and utility connection fees that a straight cosmetic-and-mechanical rehab does not trigger.

Get a real quote for the address; do not use a statewide average. Nearly 8,500 households sit inside the mapped 100-year floodplains of unincorporated Snohomish County, and the City of Everett charges a $1,587 Floodplain Development Permit fee, which is a real signal that floodplain review is priced and enforced here, not a formality. Earthquake coverage is excluded from a standard Washington homeowners policy statewide and has to be bought as a separate add-on. We could not source a reliable Snohomish County or Everett average premium; the figures that circulate online come from insurance marketing sites, not a primary source, so treat any number you see quoted that way and get bound coverage before you close.

There is no minimum score on a fix and flip loan. We do run credit, but on an asset-based loan it carries far less weight than it would at a bank. Your Everett deal is read on the purchase price, the rehab budget and the ARV. If your credit is thin, we usually offset it with lower leverage rather than declining the file, and there is no hard credit pull to start. Subject to underwriting.

About 10% of the purchase, plus closing costs. We fund up to 90% of the purchase price and up to 100% of the rehab budget, capped to ARV. On a $500,000 Everett purchase that is up to $450,000 from us and $50,000 from you (500,000 x 90% = 450,000), with rehab drawn against the schedule instead of paid up front. Carry the 9.90% sales tax on the rehab contract on top of that, because it sits outside the purchase math entirely. Subject to underwriting.

$100,000 is the floor and $5M is the ceiling. In Everett the floor is the line that actually matters, since a light cosmetic rehab on a cheap parcel can price under it. The $650,000 resale used in the excise tax answer above sits comfortably inside the range, as does most of what trades here. Term is 6 months, interest-only, so the loan is sized to a flip rather than a hold. Subject to underwriting.

Yes, first-time flippers are welcome. We underwrite the deal, so a first Everett project is judged on purchase price, rehab budget and ARV rather than on a track record you do not have yet. Experience shows up in how we structure the file, not in whether we look at it, and weaker credit is met with lower leverage instead of a decline. Time the first one to list in the spring window described above and the 6-month interest-only term gives you room to work. Subject to underwriting.